Leaders Losing Grip As Panama`s Strife Worsens

July 12, 1987|By ROBERTO FABRICIO, Latin America Editor

In a fashionable Panama City condominium overlooking one of the most strategic waterfronts in the world, where the Pacific meets the U.S.-built canal, 15 of the most influential business leaders of the country gathered in an informal conference with an American newsman.

Most broke appointments and important business meetings to attend the round- table interview. A sense of urgency was echoed by all: ``We desperately need to get the word out that Panama is in a crisis.``

This meeting took place in early 1985.

It included the head of the Panamanian Association of Business Executives, the head of the Foreign Trade Association, the president of the Association of Industry and Commerce and some top banking community officials.

They shared two striking traits. They were all under 38 and had attended leading U.S. universities such as Penn, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia. They could have easily stayed in the United States, working for top-drawer American corporations. But they returned to Panama with a sense of duty.

These relatively young men of the business establishment were the product of a long and friendly relationship between the U.S. and Panama. They were strongly pro-American; their values were middle-class American; their work ethic would have been at home on Wall Street.

In a sense, they had come to love America and its principles and values and they wanted for their country what Americans cherish as a birthright: Civil rights, freedom of expression, due process, accountability in government and the right to a responsive political system.

Their feelings were so ingrained and so deeply felt that I was not surprised a month ago when Panama was propelled to the front page`s headlines after a flurry of street demonstrations, arrests of oppositions figures and charges and countercharges of corruption, drug smuggling and murder.

Indeed, some of the names of those in the forefront of the ongoing anti- government protest are those I met at that session, such as Eduardo Vallarino (Pennsylvania`s Wharton Business School), the president of the Association of Industry and Commerce, and Roberto Brenes (Columbia`s Graduate School of Business) a Panamanian Chamber of Commerce officer and editor of a weekly business magazine.

Their message then was that Panama was being governed illegally under the power of Defense Forces Gen. Manuel Antonio Noreiga by him and other corrupt military and civilian leaders who were simply seeking enrichment and power at any cost. The business leaders felt that the ruling elite werepenetrating and demoralizing the country.

Many of those who spoke were convinced that some of the top military leaders in the country were involved in drug traffic either personally or by providing cover for traffickers. There was a sense of moral outrage at the rampant rumors of criminal activity by many in the Panamanian Defense Forces.

Those who spoke the loudest were those who were bitter at the role the U.S. was then playing. Because the Panama Canal is considered a vital strategic installation and because the United States monitors Central American crises from the four military bases in the canal area, the U.S. Southern Command was forcing the U.S. Embassy to support an illegal and unpopular government, they said.

Case in point was that the U.S. Embassy had quickly supported the results of the 1983 elections that had installed president Ardito Baletta in power (he was the candidate Noriega and the other generals felt comfortable with), even though many Panamanians felt the election was rigged shamelessly and taken away from Arnulfo Arias, the former president who at 84 is immesely popular with the masses but suspected by the military.

Shortly after the meeting in Panama City, charismatic opposition leader Dr. Hugo Spadafora was abducted by uniformed men; his corpse later was found beheaded and mutilated. Streets demonstrations went on for weeks. Last year, largely after the insistence of some of the same business leaders I had met, The New York Times published a two-page investigative story linking Noriega and some of his top generals to drug figures, to widespread criminal activity and to espionage in behalf of half a dozen intelligence agencies, including Cuba`s DGI (Directorate General of Intelligence) and the CIA. The story alleged that he is an independent operative who sells and trades intelligence to Eastern and Western clients.

When then-President Barletta called for an independent investigation into Spadafora`s murder, Noriega obtained and got his resignation. It was then that Eric Arturo Delvalle, the vice president, was elevated to the presidency by Noriega and company.